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cahieranglais-bat.qxd:Mise en page 5 14/05/08 10:23 Page 1 4-26 July 2008 62nd Festival d’Avignon English version of the program This document contains the English version of the program. The page references refer to the French version where details of the casts and crews are also available. page 2 experience but that will strike each of them differ- ently. In this sense, it symbolically goes beyond EDITORIAL the venue of the theatre itself and invests the city. That is why public policies, in France as in Europe, Midway in the journey of our life need to consider artistic creation as an unalien- I came to myself in a dark wood, able public good and that its production and pro- for the straight way was lost. gramming must be supported apart from just the Ah, how hard it is to tell laws of the market, in an approach centred on sol- the nature of that wood, savage, idarity and sharing. dense and harsh – We await you, artists and spectators, this summer the very thought of it renews my fear! in Avignon, so that theatre comes to pass and, we, Hell (Canto I), The Divine Comedy, Dante together bear witness to its necessity, diversity and vitality. Before creating this 62nd Festival, we spent a great deal of time talking with the actress Valérie Hortense Archambault, Vincent Baudriller directors Dréville and the Italian artist Romeo Castellucci, Avignon, 7 March 2008 whom we asked to be associate artists together. They are in very different creation spaces. Valérie Dréville, an actress, built an artist’s career with directors such as Antoine Vitez, Claude Régy, Alain Françon and Anatoli Vassiliev. Romeo page 3 Castellucci, the creator of his own shows, has CONVERSATION invented a sensitive and visual form of theatre that is extraordinarily powerful. Their art forms always FOR THE FESTIVAL offer the spectators an opportunity to have a D’AVIGNON 2008 strong and singular experience and often lead them to unexpected territories, to hear beyond Extracts from a crossed interview with Valérie Dréville, words, to see beyond images. Romeo Castellucci, Hortense Archambault We chose to publish one of our conversations to and Vincent Baudriller accompany the spectators in their journey through the Festival. Romeo Castellucci: There has always been an This Festival’s creations query us on life and death, absolutely essential confrontation in Avignon of on our fears and melancholy, our need to love and theatre work with the public. Right from my first to believe, to grow and transmit. Based on con- show here, Giulio Cesare in 1998, there had been at temporary writings or revisiting the great works of the same time that total fragility, that absolute the European repertory, they will call on our exposure, as if the show were naked in front of the curiosity, our desire for discovery and will some- public and the protection brought by the fact of times take us into an unknown land to better stim- being part of a more general intention specific to ulate our own critical spirit. As it encompasses the the Festival, to its choice, its ambitions, the com- mystery of the human being in all his complexity, munity that it brings together. […] as it calls on the spectator’s intelligence and respects the freedom of his viewpoint on the Valérie Dréville: I think that Avignon is where it all shows, this Festival is political and resists the began. In 1987, with The Satin Slipper staged by temptations to simplify what surround us. Antoine Vitez in the Cour d’honneur, this resem- It reminds us that theatre has carried within itself, bles a revelation vis-à-vis theatre, vis-à-vis an since its very beginnings, that paradoxical desire adventure like that of The Satin Slipper, vis-à-vis for a common image of the world that is shared by Antoine Vitez, the encounter with Claudel, with the spectators who are present, together, at an the actors or the public. This fuel is still burning, 1 cahieranglais-bat.qxd:Mise en page 5 14/05/08 10:23 Page 2 20 years later, a living flame with slow combus- actor, on the stage, you really feel the concentra- tion. Avignon… It’s a certain way of doing theatre tion, the transformation at work in the show. that includes a feeling of happiness, an extremely Something starts to vibrate between people, sensual pleasure, a disconcerting jubilation. I’ve which simultaneously mobilizes seeing, hearing, always felt intense happiness here, connected to skin, bodies. The spectator abandons his passivity, the freedom left up to the shows, to childhood comes out of himself to offer himself to the show memories that resurfaced, but also because it’s a he is seeing. space of combat and conflict. You can’t have one without the other: that’s the condition for the You’ll find this complete crossed interview in pleasure taken and given in Avignon. a work published in collaboration with P.O.L éditions, distributed free of charge on request Hortense Archambault: The “contract” signed at the Cloître Saint-Louis, the École d’Art and between the Festival and the spectators doesn’t the Festival’s shop. It can also be downloaded prevent conflict, or a form of combat, but it gives it from the Internet site. a framework in which the shows play by certain rules, which imply respect for others. The stronger the contract, the more relief the encounter can take. page 4 Vincent Baudriller: The sensuality and combat VALÉRIE DRÉVILLE Valérie is talking about also go through the spec- tator’s body. […] Associate artist Romeo Castellucci: I have the impression that It is the desire to learn that seems to be at the heart time is divided in two here. The time of the per- of Valérie Dréville’s approach to acting, even more formance, which is often epidermal […] and then than the desire to act. This is undoubtedly what that of the encounter, the discussion, the forum, makes her career atypical, rich in adventures and which for me is a lot more serene… Theatre is a powerful experiences that transform her and per- very strong experience of oneself as if it involved a mit her to always be where she is not necessarily fit of awareness. Knowledge reaches each specta- expected. Learning and transmitting, of course, tor through his body. So that has something to do because Valérie Dréville does not want to isolate with each individual’s solitude. But theatre makes herself in an individual practice whose sterility it possible to share this solitude with other soli- would be totally foreign to her nature, someone tudes during a performance. who loves above all to share. Learning at the school That is what the show can seize upon, but it is a of the Théâtre National de Chaillot with Antoine fleeting and fragile impression. Theatre, as I con- Vitez, her first master, the one who taught her that ceive it, is a ceremonial that could awaken the you must look outside yourself. Under his direction, spectator’s view on things. she acted in some of the most important shows in We need to share this view, it’s a necessity, it isn’t the 1980s: Electra by Sophocles, The Satin Slipper simple curiosity, that flat view of communication, by Paul Claudel, Galileo by Bertolt Brecht and La the theatre’s view that we can share while watch- Celestina by Fernando de Rojas. Learning with ing a show, is on the contrary hypnotic, it moves, it Claude Régy, a master met at the Conservatoire is capable of shifting and “shaping” the things it National Supérieur d’Art Dramatique of Paris which sees. But that is only possible because of the com- she entered after the Chaillot. With Claude Régy, munion with the spectators. […] she explored another dimension of acting that she This view is that of the body, it is very physical: it did not consider opposed to that of Antoine Vitez functions like a pore in the skin, through which but, on the contrary, that she used as an extension moods, emotions, sensations and also knowledge of what she had already learned. With Claude pass. Without presupposition, without advance Régy, she went deeper into herself to leave the notice, the encounter is the strongest possible, possibility of expressing herself to her uncon- when the spectator is like a child. scious, and through it she encountered the uni- verses of Gregory Motton (The Terrible Voice of Vincent Baudriller: Less in recognition than in Satan), Jon Fosse (Someone Is Going to Come, discovery… then Variations of Dead), David Harrower (Knives in Hens), Henri Meschonnic (who translated the Bibli- Valérie Dréville: It’s a form of abandonment too… cal psalms in Like a song of David) and Maurice When viewing a show, you sometimes say to your- Maeterlinck (The Death of Tintagiles). Joining the self: “I have to let go of part of me…” You have to Comédie-Française as a resident on the request of let go, release yourself, it’s difficult. Sometimes Antoine Vitez, who was appointed its administrator you can’t find it. It’s a very strange exercise. As an in 1988, she met her third master there, the Russian 2 cahieranglais-bat.qxd:Mise en page 5 14/05/08 10:23 Page 3 director Anatoli Vassiliev, who asked her to act in Masked Ball by Lermontov. Under his direction, she page 6 acted notably in Medea Material by Heiner Müller GAËL BARON / for several successive seasons starting in 2002. She had previously acted in Amphitryon by Molière, NICOLAS BOUCHAUD / then took charge, on Vassiliev’s request, of the CHARLOTTE CLAMENS / “verbal training” of her fellow actors at the Comédie-Française for a new creation of Amphit- VALÉRIE DRÉVILLE / ryon by the Russian master in 2002.